Vautrin

I've seen it two or three times before. Once you know the surprise ending, where Bobby doesn't even get a chance to take a sip of his champagne, that puts a bit of a dent in a second viewing. It bogs did a little in the middle, but things pick up after Dad and Step Mom go over the edge and the trial starts. Drop me off at Wiltshire Blvd. and over they go. Funny. I always enjoy Herbert Marshall in his ultra macho, strong silent type prime. Don't mess with this dude. Yes, Jean's wigs were awful, especially that Beatles/ Prince Valiant job she wore at the beginning. Ouch. Mona Freeman came off much better than Jean did. Bob should have stuck with her, instead of letting dull old Kenneth Tobey move in. Angel Face isn't bad, but it's never been one of my favorite noirs. Still, not a bad way to spend 91 minutes.

Perry Como may be dead but, like the similarly dead Andy Williams, his sweaters live on. I thought Como at one time insulted Harry Cohn and that didn't help his meager film career, but I can't seem to find that anecdote. I'll look in more detail later on. Back in the day my friends and I wouldn't watch PC or AW if you paid us. Squares.

That's for sure, yet it seems that bastard is okay, which was a surprise to me the first time I used it and it went though unscathed. Smoke on the Walter, a whisky in the Skye.

I guess they want to protect the millions of ten year olds who are on the site who already know what it stands for.

I hope not. They won't allow the acronym for laughing my you know what off here. Sad.

Wasn't it discovered after Kuralt's death that he had been shacking up with some babe while he was out "on the road?" I OAML when I read about that. You've got to watch out for these quiet, sensitive types.

The best thing about Desperate was that I hadn't seen it before. Sometimes I'll get ready to watch one of these noir flicks and then realize, after five or ten minutes, that I've already seen it, especially those ones with one word titles that don't give much of a clue as to what the movie is about. The story of the innocent, (relatively) young married couple trying to get away from the nutso criminals is usually a good one. There's a bit of the old hiding in the country where simple living abounds to get away from the big city menace that is on its way to spoil everything. Some of the visuals were certainly interesting, especially the final shootout in the stairwell of the apartment house. I got a kick out of Burr's henchman calling the stuff in the refrigerator "tired" meat. Yuck. I also noticed that, just like in TV westerns, the dumb cop came out behind his shelter to stand out in the open so he could get shot. When will they ever learn? All in all, a nice spare and entertaining movie.

Sad to hear about Bill Daily. FETV on DirecTV just started to run the Bob Newhart Show a few weeks ago and Daily is hilarious as Howard Borden. I don't think I've seen the show in about twenty years. The Mary Tyler Moore Show comes on right after Newhart, though both have a lot of cuts. MTM is also on YT without any cuts. People have remarked in the comments section that they noticed Mary had the Woodstock album in front of her record collection. This is during the season when she moved into her new apartment. I was watching a few days ago and now the Physical Graffiti album is in the front. Who knew that Mary Richards was a Zeppelin fan.

I still have a few old VHS tapes of Beware of a Holy ***** and Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven around somewhere. The first is one of those movies about making a movie. It's fairly early Fassbinder and interesting to a certain extent, though it's pretty well trodden territory. Hanna has a brief nude scene. The second is a weird film about a communist cell and its various low success activities. I should take another look at that one since it's been years since I've watched it. I recall watching Veronika Voss on YT. Very stylish and sad. Not sure if it's still available. Fassbinder films pop up on YT and then disappear. Many people consider Petra Von Kant too talky and static, but I enjoy it, though I don't think it's one of those movies you want to see every year. But what a great title. One of my favorites is Fox and His Friends. Besides the melancholy tone of the story, you'll see more of Fassbinder than you probably have of any other director.

Some TV stars did go on to make it big in the movies, but I think that is the exception to the rule. Most of them went on to average careers in movies or later TV shows. That's not a knock against them, becoming a big movie star is a combination of forces that not everybody experiences. I just remembered one strange appearance by Burt Reynolds. He was seen very briefly in Ross McElwee's Sherman's March when McElwee tries to get some shots of Burt on a movie set.

They all ended up in California and were associated with California, usually the fast lane, fast living side. Some of that might have been hype, but it was there. I just like the band, wherever they are from.

I knew he was getting up there. You could tell when he made a TV appearance. Gunsmoke is on the Inspiration channel every night. A young Burt played Quint Asper, the "half breed" who had to put up with a lot of crap from other people, though Matt, Doc, Festus, and Kitty liked him. I think they are just coming to the seasons when Burt was there. Unlike many TV stars he became a famous movie star too.

Yeah, not exactly a great comeback vehicle. It makes Airport look like Citizen Kane.

If it was last shown in 2010, that's a pretty long drought. I looked on YT, but there are only some excerpts. At a little over two hours, 15 minutes could probably be trimmed without sacrificing the fact that Walker is a pretty nutty guy.

Of course they did play a lot of country rock, but they also had that California vibe, especially with The Hotel California album. The sort of rock royalty thing the punks hated. Joel did like to remind people he was a New Yorker but I guess that went with the territory.

Welcome to the Hotel Non-California. I still think there's something to your theory, just that artists who are very popular tend to be popular everywhere, but Billy Joel is still seen as a NYC kind of guy and the Eagles as California dudes.

Well that has become his nickname. Don't know if he started that himself or if someone gave him that handle. That's the only reason I used it. I like the Eagles, Billy Joel, and Springsteen, though I don't listen to them very much anymore. The Born in the U.S.A. album was pretty good, despite all the hype at the time. I wouldn't call it his best album, just his most popular.

As just a regular movie, it's no big deal, but as an anti-commie propaganda piece it's over the top. That's what makes it entertaining to me.

Just a minor correction. My Son John came out in 1952 near the height of the Red Scare. It will make you laugh, It will make you cry, It might even make you, Want to join the Communist Partei.

They probably have shown it, but it seems like it was many years ago. It was a little heavy handed, though I found it fairly entertaining and as a piece of 1950s anti-red camp it's even better. While the red monster analogies are fun, real movie commies are even funnier. The Labor Day scenes in Picnic always remind mind of similar ones in Peyton Place, especially the kids who eat too much and have to puke. The mill owner throws a picnic for all the workers. Big deal.

I just read a few days ago that the Eagles first Greatest Hits album has resumed its spot as the best selling album, surpassing Michael Jackson's Thriller. They seem to alternate as number one and two and change every few years. I guess it's a bit of a cheat as it's a greatest hits album versus a studio album. The Eagles were pretty popular during the 1970s no matter where one lived. I have most of their albums, though I don't listen to them very much anymore. And don't mess with the Boss.

Jerry tried out Witch-chay Woman for about half a minute, but it just didn't work. I liked the Eagles, so did lots of people. They were one of the most popular American bands of the 1970s.

So to speak. Of course some people handle solitude better than others. Thoreau seemed to do that fairly well, but its always good to have a support system. I think he would have been able to survive all on his own out at Walden pond, but having family near where he could go for some rest and relaxation and other things made it more bearable. And of course people living in the America of the mid 19th century had more knowledge of how to live off the land than people do today. Walden is somewhat of an idealized picture as I don't think he mentioned his numerous trips home, but that doesn't make it any less of an intriguing work.

Bummer, man. Yes, they show films from the Soviet era and other left wing, pinko subversion. But do they ever show My Son John, a movie that alerted Americans to how close commies can come to burrowing their way into American everyday life and laying waste to our belolved American exceptionalism? Noooooooo.

After a semi-rigorous YT search I found that old nudie camp movie I mentioned before. Titled Diary of a Nudist (makes sense) it was made in 1961 by Doris Wishman who also made other nudist flicks, including the one about nudies on the moonies. I had mixed up a few details of the plot. Stacey is a reporter assigned by her boss to go "undercover" to investigate the nudist camp he found while out hunting. They both dislike the idea of nudists, but after a while Stacey enjoys bouncing around with no clothes on and her boss comes over to her view. At the end he declares his love and they walk off into the sunset, though both are fully clothed. There are a lot of boobs and rears on display, but when it comes to the lower depths, things are different. There always seems to be towels or large hats placed strategically to cover the naughty bits. Still a rather charming film about sun worshipers. I remember reading in various articles about Thoreau that when old Dave got tired of squirrel sandwiches he would walk back to Concord and have his mom fix him a hot meal or mend his clothes. So life in the woods was not quite as hard as it seemed. This has never diminished my enjoyment of Walden. It really gives it more of a human touch and a little extra comic feel. And Thoreau's self-reliance is still very impressive.